Monthly Archives: July 2014

Computer users pass around USB sticks like silicon business cards. Although we know they often carry malware infections, we depend on antivirus scans and the occasional reformatting to keep our thumb drives from becoming the carrier for the next digital epidemic. But the security problems with USB devices run deeper than you think: Their risk isn’t just in what they carry, it’s built into the core of how they work.

That’s the takeaway from findings security researchers Karsten Nohl and Jakob Lell plan to present next week, demonstrating a collection of proof-of-concept malicious software that highlights how the security of USB devices has long been fundamentally broken. The malware they created, called Bad USB, can be installed on a USB device to completely take over a PC, invisibly alter files installed from the memory stick, or even redirect the user’s internet traffic. Because Bad USB resides not in the flash memory storage of USB devices, but in the firmware that controls their basic functions, the attack code can remain hidden long after the contents of the device’s memory would appear to the average user to be deleted. And the two researchers say there’s no easy fix: The kind of compromise they’re demonstrating is nearly impossible to counter without banning the sharing of USB devices or filling your port with superglue.

Ever hear the saying, “you only have one chance at a first impression”? Of course you have, because you didn’t just fall off the turnip truck yesterday.

The difficulty with first impressions is that when you meet someone new, you don’t often know if that person could be highly valuable to you or your business. Yep, that random person at that restaurant or the baseball game that was just introduced to you by a friend could work for or own the company that you’re currently trying to sell your new product line to.

But you won’t know that until you walk into their office and realize that you’ve recently met. Let’s just hope that you didn’t make one of these 10 first impression killers.

Tablet sales are “crashing,” says Best Buy’s CEO! IPad sales are sinking fast! Is this the beginning of the end for the tablet?

Easy, there, tiger. Tablets are still popular and sales are growing — 11% last quarter, to be precise, according to tech consultancy IDC. Still, that’s a far cry from two years ago, when tablets were growing at a 60% clip. Meanwhile, the iPad has been in the doldrums, posting a 9% sales decline last quarter, which was preceded by a 16% slump the quarter before that.

So what’s going wrong? There are three big obstacles facing the market that are impacting demand for tablets: Smartphones are getting bigger, tablets last a while and businesses aren’t buying them.

Smartphones are getting bigger. Like, seriously huge. Samsung’s popular Galaxy S5 has a 5.1-inch screen. Its Galaxy Note smartphone has a 5.5-inch screen, and Apple is expected to release an iPhone 6 of the same size this fall. Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablet is just 1.5 inches bigger.

In a move that could ultimately have a huge impact on all franchising, the general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board has said that McDonald’s is the joint employer of workers at its franchise locations. If ultimately upheld, that could put McDonald’s at the epicenter of class action suits over fast food worker wages and working conditions.

Traditionally, franchise owners themselves were considered sole employers of their workers. Because they operated as separate legal entities, franchisors were isolated from any labor disputes. By declaring that McDonald’s is a joint employer, the NLRB has shaken that structure.

“Corporations that exercise sufficient control over their franchisees cannot claim ignorance,” said Catherine Ruckelshaus, general counsel and program director for the National Employment Law Project, in a Tuesday conference call held by the organizations supporting the lawsuits. “This accountability means ensuring that the franchises comply with the basics of the law.”

French toast served with butter syrup and bacon, a platter of fried seafood and hush puppies, and a cheesecake made with Reese’s peanut butter cups and fudge are among the meals singled out this year for their shockingly unhealthy nutrition content in a new report from a nonprofit watchdog group.

Nine meals from American chain restaurants were selected for the 2014 Xtreme Eating Awards, a list released yearly by the Center for Science in the Public Interest as a way to highlight meals that are very high in calories, saturated fat, sodium and sugar.

Nearly all the meals on this year’s list have at least 2,000 calories, and a few top 3,000 calories. “You could take half home and still overeat,” the CSPI says.

Statistics for women in business are mostly bleak. For example, women still earn 77 cents to every dollar men make and just 7% of female-backed teams get venture funding. A recently released study however, offers a glimmer of positivity. When women have established businesses, they are actually happier than their entrepreneurial male counterparts, as well as rating their well-being more than twice as high as non-entrepreneurs and non-business owners, according to the 2013 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor GEM U.S. Report.

There was one caveat – female entrepreneurs who are just starting out are less happy than male entrepreneurs in the start-up phase, says Edward Rogoff, one of the reports authors. One out of 10 women in the U.S. is starting or running a new business, the report also found. This rate is higher than any of the other 24 developed economies measured.

Like last year and the year before that, 2014 has been dubbed the “Year of Mobile” when ad dollars would start to catch up to smartphone usage. With major players like Facebook, Twitter and Google all pivoting to a mobile-first strategy, pundits claim this accelerated monetization as imminent. Unfortunately, there are fundamental hurdles inherent to the mobile ad ecosystem that must be cleared for this to become a reality.

Without a doubt, mobile marketing has fantastic potential, but we’re not there just yet. Outside of Facebook and Twitter, the majority of ad inventory available to marketers is the mobile banner, which has nearly the worst signal-to-noise ratio of any ad medium ever invented—second only to incentivized clicks. That means that the success of campaigns has almost no correlation to click performance data. Mobile game companies have consequently swallowed this market, buying ads based on inferred lifetime valuations LTV of customers.

Given the slight chances of success, it’s a marvel anyone ever starts a business at all. One-third of new ventures close within two years, half within five years, and so on: only one in four is still around 15 years after opening day. But all that failure may offer its own reward, according to new research from a pair of economists from Stanford and the University of Michigan. They found that failed entrepreneurs are far more likely to be successful in their second go-around, provided they try again.The entrepreneurship studies that grab headlines tend to focus on investor-backed, technology start-ups. Those types of firms aren’t the norm. Most new businesses are still small, local retailers. To understand how these enterprises fare, Francine Lafontaine and Kathryn Shaw studied the successes and failures of retail entrepreneurs in Texas from 1990 to 2011. Over the 21-year-period, 2.4 million retail businesses opened and 2.2 million closed. Three out of every four were founded by first-time business owners.

Solar power cells need to stay relatively cool for the sake of both efficiency and longevity, but active cooling like ventilation isn’t practical; it’s expensive, and may block the very rays the cells are supposed to collect. To tackle this problem, Stanford University researchers have created a new form of solar cell that cools itself. The technique embeds a pattern of very small cone and pyramid shapes into the collector’s silica surface, bouncing hot infrared wavelengths away while letting in the visible light that generates the most energy.

The result is a heavily optimized panel that not only scoops up more power, but avoids cooking itself to death — it’s very nearly ideal, according to scientists. The Stanford team has a long way to go it still has to try the self-cooling tech outdoors, but it foresees commercial products. Don’t be surprised if you can eventually install a refined solar array at home that not only powers more of your gadgets, but doesn’t need to be replaced after suffering through a few too many scorching summers.